pugbutter

Chronicles of Ainedal [A medieval fantasy] [Closed]

Cool thread. Are you looking for a straightforwardly good and heroic cast, or do you have room in the game for characters of dubious motivations and questionable methods? For example will you accept assassins, warlords, Machiavellian schemers, that kind of thing?

"VERGE": Yankii, Sukeban, & Misc. Anime Delinquents Inquire Within for a Bōsōzoku Brawler

@rocketrobie2 I could run this RP with a small cast of, say, four dedicated people. A combination of that many characters (two initiates/rookies and two upperclassmen, for example) would be enough to explore multiple personality dynamics within the group and make it feel alive despite being mostly populated with NPC's.

If @Dead Cruiser is in, and I'm willing to play a young, dumb DMPC, then we have enough to start, cuz a personal friend is already interested as well. But finding a fifth person would be ideal so I don't have to resort to a DMPC.

"VERGE": Yankii, Sukeban, & Misc. Anime Delinquents Inquire Within for a Bōsōzoku Brawler

@Dead Cruiser Sure is. Not as necessary as the Vice story or the Gaijin Rider articles for basic research, IMO, but it sets a tone, especially for those who want to see a slice of the scene's origins in the early 70s.

Good to see you. Thanks for posting.

"VERGE": Yankii, Sukeban, & Misc. Anime Delinquents Inquire Within for a Bōsōzoku Brawler

Recommended Reading

"Bōsōzoku Girls of Japan" [video]

Godspeed You! Black Emperor by Mitsuo Yanagimachi [video]

"Life After the Bubble: How Japan Lost a Decade" by Jim Impoco (The New York Times)

"Revisiting the Glory Days with One of Japan's Most Violent Biker Gangs" by Vice [video]

"The History of Japan's Bōsōzoku Gangs" by Return of the Cafe Racer

"THE YANKĪ and BŌSŌZOKU: Origins and History" by Gaijin Rider

"Why Japan youth gangs don't use guns" by Annalisa Merelli

"Worn to be Wild: Tokkōfuku Combat Uniforms" by Tomohiro Osaki (Japan Times)

"VERGE": Yankii, Sukeban, & Misc. Anime Delinquents Inquire Within for a Bōsōzoku Brawler

Hi, I'm pug. I've been GMing freeform RP for eight years, and motorcycling for three. (Current ride is a 2020 Royal Enfield INT650.) I've been tossing around the ideas for this RP for probably about two years now, but it just so happens the riding season is just coming to a close as the cold weather moves in. So my fellow bikers and I can motorcycle vicariously for a while.

Along the way we can also do slice-of-life stuff including turf wars, police chases, school hijinx, romance/relationships, and whatever you guys want.

Being a motorcyclist, or being interested in motorcycling and the bōsōzoku culture isn't necessary, but it'll help. I hope it might even inspire someone to take an MSF course and start riding for the first time.

This RP might also be for you if you like James Dean movies, Akira, Cool Hand Luke, Great Teacher Onizuka, or any other fiction which deals in disobedience and social estrangement as core motifs.

Content Warnings

• There will be scenes of graphic and explicit violence.
  -
• There will be graphic depictions of drug abuse.
  -
• There will be implied, off-screen sex between consenting minors. (I don't RP that stuff and I definitely don't want it in my game. You and your writing partner can take it to PM's if you really must.)
  -
• Most characters are from broken homes and "the wrong side of the tracks." Consequently there will be themes of abuse, neglect, abandonment, and trauma.
  -
• Some gangs wear fascist imagery and symbols to protest modern Japanese values, or simply to shock and offend others. (These symbols, slogans, salutes, etc. belong in-character (IC) only. We will not condone these symbols, or the ideologies they represent, out-of-character (OOC); and any player who espouses them OOC will be immediately booted. No warning, no second chances.)

Now, technically this is an historical game, as the goal of VERGE will be to tell a small, character-driven story about delinquency and belonging within the zeitgeist of boom-era Japan. However there will be some historical discrepancies, mostly to improve play by placing greater emphasis on things like character design and player agency. These are:

• IRL most bōsōzoku motorcycles were between 250cc and 400cc. In my version of the setting you can ride any make/model of bike you want, from the years (say) 1960 to 1982. Although anything foreign is rare, you can own a CBX1000, a Z1, or whatever domestic super-sport you fancy with relative ease.
  -
• Well over 90% of real bōsōzoku (and criminals in general) are male, but our cast will have roughly an even split between guys and girls.
  -
• Most gangs are gender-segregated, so to explain why we have girls and guys all riding together, our gang is actually an alliance (rengō) between an all-male gang, called Gekokujō ("Overthrow from Below"), and an all-female gang, called Akushitsuna Kīsu ("Vicious Kiss").
  -
• We're using a fictional version of the Tokyo metropolitan area, so we are not beholden to IRL geography; in fact you're encouraged to invent your own landmarks for the city, like an Ame-mura, favorite hangout spots for the gangs, reform schools and youth prisons, etc. However the geographic features of Hizuwa City's Yamashin Ward do broadly follow IRL: suburbs sandwiched between metropolis and snaking mountain roads. (If you need IRL reference, see the town of Niiza in Saitama.)
  -
• This setting's gangs have invented their own system for distinguishing friend from foe in the throes of battle: most of them (at least those from the same prefecture) should know which gang you're from simply by noting the secondary color of the lettering and symbolism, stitched onto the primary color of your tokkōfuku. This almost works like pre-Norman heraldry, in that your uniform's basic color scheme is exclusive to your "clan" and immediately belies your allegiances. (Gekokujō's colors are red on cream; Akushitsuna Kīsu's are pink on navy-black.)

That's mostly it, then. Here's to the scream of the engines, the taste of the exhaust, and the sting of the wind in our eyes. Hope to see you on the road.

"VERGE": Yankii, Sukeban, & Misc. Anime Delinquents Inquire Within for a Bōsōzoku Brawler

1983. Anri and Junko Yagami serenade the nation through its affordable and high-quality cassette decks. Japanese exports (cars, electronics, anime, porn) have suddenly conquered an unsuspecting foreign market. The yen is high, and unemployment is low. For those with disposable income, life has never been more convenient, indulgent, or luxurious.

And for those without,—well—

By day they're cashiers and waitresses. Sons and daughters. Students. Earning and spending, earning and spending. Just like everyone else. But by night, the shadows shudder with the roar of their engines, and the din of battle floods their quiet, suburban streets. They don the colors and unfurl the flag.

And violence reigns.

Because empty consumerism is at an all-time high in Japan, so too is the natural backlash: a restless discontent and lack of belonging which Émile Durkheim called anomie. Where society has given them no purpose, over 45,000 teenagers of Japan have decided to create their own, wearing uniforms, shouting slogans, and waging wars all of their own design, each with its own meaning. Territory and conquest, loyalty and brotherhood, customization of a loud, fast machine into a piece of personal expression—these give them purpose where in plastic commodities and brainless pop music they find none.

You are one of the 45,000: a teenager between the ages of 14 and 19; probably working-class; a bully; a reject; in other words, perfect fodder for the bōsōzoku. You've worked hard to get where you are, appeasing bullshit initiation rites and the capricious wants and wishes of your gang seniors. Now you're finally one of them, and the world will suffer in your boredom. Vandalism, assault, theft; how else can you punish the suit-and-tie slaves, the other gangs, and the cops who all want to see you on your knees?

You will fight to claim new turf and defend your own. You will forge alliances and answer betrayal with blood. You'll escape the police, your teachers, your parents. You might attempt to keep your grades up or find a job and a girlfriend along the way. And maybe, maybe, for all your commitment and zeal, this little family will prove tighter than the ones you're so desperate to escape.

The world belongs to you, young-blood ... but only if you have the balls to take it. To fight for what you deserve. So grease your pompadours, roll your R's, stow your bokkens and baseball bats, and get ready to RIDE.

"VERGE": Yankii, Sukeban, & Misc. Anime Delinquents Inquire Within for a Bōsōzoku Brawler

- - - - - - - - - - -

The vampre princes part 2

Khvresh had thought it dusk-time, the vampire's dawn; when they should have been rising, and relishing, and readying for a new, dark hour. He saw now that he was wrong. An afternoon blue still blazed outside; only, as the light sprawled through the mouth of the cave, it bent, and trembled, and shifted to a quivering purplish-red. It grasped toward Shah-Cthaumaphon, and sank into his shape. At his edges he shimmered like a mirage splashed over the distant sands. But past the silhouette, further, deeper, every spark of light disappeared and was devoured, as if the night sky yawned open and drank the stars.

This sentient abyss came in the shape of a man, or its nearest approximation of one. The spirit's hands were too long and spindly for his arms, his arms too long for his torso, and so on, from his vestigial neck to his vestigial feet.

"G-greetings, my lord."

Shah-Cthaumaphon unfurled, patiently filling that whole side of the cavern with his presence. His claws gripped at two opposite walls, and his back arched over the stalactites above.

"What brings you from your travels?" asked Khvresh to the countenance in the ceiling. He dreaded the master's scorching gaze, although the master had no eyes; he dreaded the thunderous resounding of the master's voice, although he had no mouth.

"UUUUUUUUNPAID ... YOUR DEBT, UNPAID ..." This warning shrieked not through the cavern; but through the Caurgasts' own skulls, both of them who beheld him. It bounced off bone and shivered through the pluck encased within, for the spirit spoke without lungs and tongue.

Khvresh wondered where Lornhir slunk off to; what she wished to say but dared not. He, in kind, dared not turn around to search for her.

"Soon!" he cried. "As soon as we can. The time hasn't been right."

Like a flame emits heat, the black flames snaking from Shah-Cthaumaphon's black shoulders reeked of cold as he slithered near. Cold. Centuries of vampirism had deadened flesh which once remembered the sensation. To be reminded now, with such malice that dwarfed even his own ... Khvresh shuddered.

Then the terrible howling returned to his thoughts: "PPPPPPPPPPPPROMISED ... SOON ... ALREADY, SOON ..."

"I know what I said." Khvresh wondered whether, if he were to strike toward the edimmu, he would hit meat, bone, jelly, ooze, anything tangible and concrete; or shadow, nothing more. Whether that evil cold would infect him and crawl up his arm like a blight. Whether Shah-Chthaumaphon could eat a clawed hand like he ate light and warmth. "We will give you everything we owe, and more. But we require your patience, my lord."

"PPPPPPPPATIENCE ... FINITE, PATIENCE ... GUESTS ... SQUANDER ..."

"Yes," said Khvresh. "Patience. You will have what you are owed. On my oath."

"OOOOOOOATH," said the edimmu. "VAMPIRE ... PROMISES. OBSCENE ... HONOR ... BLASPHEMY ..."

But what else could he say? Khvresh only watched, and waited. Was this the end of their bargain? Immortal, timeless, both of them, and yet this restless spirit couldn't wait another forty, fifty years? While the Caurgasts replenished their strength, and gathered their allies? Seconds felt like hours. A minute felt like a century; until finally, Shah-Cthaumaphon decided that he had more pressing business somewhere else—or, perhaps, that his vengeance could wait another year. He drifted toward the mouth of the cave, where the light stoppered and clogged as it was pulled into his darkness; then, he vanished into the sands beyond.

The mortals called them Balba Yemeq. The edimmu used an ancient, long-forgotten name: Limtulkku. The sands, either way, were no anathema to him; the master wandered freely under the heat and the light, even if they forced him to take a subtler form. But something bound him to the cave. Something made him need the Caurgasts, just as much as they needed the shelter he had provided to them.

But Khvresh would remember these injustices and injuries when he escaped this wretched place. When he had servants and slaves and an army again. When he had reclaimed the estate and restored terror to his realm.

You will get exactly what you are owed, wraith. Oh, yes. Mark my words.

"Brother." Lornhir had rushed to his side, and begun pulling him away. With Shah-Cthaumaphon's departure the afternoon light could leak into the cave once more. The rays had burned Khvresh's hand, and most of his leg, while he nursed old fantasies. Foolish. Foolish. They both looked down at the raw, weeping sores now running down his flank.

"I'm all right," said Khvresh despite the sting. He grasped Lornhir by both her ears. They kissed with heat and with longing; for each other, and for things they had lost along the way. "But I cannot heal without ..."

"Blood," Lornhir remarked. "Right. I'll leave at first dark."

"You are so good to me. Even when I have been so cruel."

"For father's heir—for my prince—anything."

They kissed again.

The vampre princes part 2

@gorgenmast 👀💖🥺

The vampre princes part 2

I think the first resolution to reach is whether gorgenmast wishes to join us.